It’s that time of the year again! The Wacken Diary 2011 goes online. Again we will give you an insight of how the works behind the scenes are proceeding all the way from set up to deconstruction. There will be additional information as well. This year you will receive fast updates via the official Wacken Facebook (www.facebook.com/WackenOpenAir.official) and Twitter (twitter.com)

Wacken, festial area. Sunday evening. Ymir‘s grey skull archs gravely over the North of Germany. Today‘s clouds are hanging low, but luckily they refrain from releasing their wet freight. All forecasts claim that the local weather will improve during the week. Keep your fingers’ crossed.

The build-up of the festival is a full day ahead of its schedule: The two main stages, the Party Stage and the tent of the W.E.T stage as well as the huge Bullhead City tent are all proudly standing on the field. The crews have been amazing and iron hands, scaffer and rigger well deserve the respect due to them. All technical parts are still missing though, but heavy trucks are roaring across the access roads all night long. Let’s see how things are looking today...

During the night the first fans are arriving to be ready for the opening at 15:00 CET. Two die-hards have been showing off by cycling all the way down from Norway via Sweden and Denmark – true Metal sportsmanship. Congratulations and good luck for the journey back home by the end of this week. If you had a similarly strange trip, you may let us know on the Wacken Facebook page.

Why should there be alcoholic beverages only? The W:O:A is presenting its own water this year. The low-priced liquid comes in practical 1.5 litre bottles and with a healthy low salt content. It is also quite wet by default and an excellent resource in combating the effects of a hangover. Talking about bottles: bottles made from glass are not permitted on the festival area and camping grounds. All stores on the festival site are offering to refill any content from glass to stylish PET bottles.

Thomas Jensen confirms the excellent advance of the proceedings: "We are faster than ever with our build-up", rejoices the co-founder of the festival. "Now all we need is the right kind of weather to have a fantastic party this year!"

Your Wacken diary team